Dick Cheney: Obama is weakest president of my lifetime, and more must-reads

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Former Vice President Dick Cheney

“He’s a very weak president, certainly the weakest I have seen in my lifetime.” That’s former Vice President Dick Cheney’s assessment of Barack Obama, in an interview with Fox’s “Hannity.” The comments came after Obama announced plans to pull forces out of Afghanistan, decreasing forces gradually until the end of 2015. “He’s prepared to pull out, at this point, all of our capability in Afghanistan and not negotiate a stay-behind agreement…That’s stupid, unwise and will in fact just reinforce the notion that we’re weak and that we have a president that doesn’t understand his obligations.”

Strongest action ever: The New York Times reports Obama will use his executive authority to cut carbon emissions from the country’s coal-fired power plants by up to 20%, and will force industry to pay for the pollution it creates through cap-and-trade programs across the nation. Obama will unveil the plans in a new regulation at the White House on Monday. The Times said it will be the strongest action ever taken by an American president to tackle climate change.

Conservative House Republicans are pushing for a vote on a GOP health-care plan to show they have a policy position beyond repealing President Obama’s Affordable Care Act. The Wall Street Journal reports members of the Republican Study Committee plan to urge GOP leaders during a closed-door meeting on Thursday to move forward with the group’s own health-care bill, which would change the tax treatment of health plans.

Tax tiff: The Hill writes that a free-market tax group is questioning a report from a liberal organization that asserted U.S. corporations are using accounting gimmicks to claim profits in tax havens. Free-market group the Tax Foundation said Wednesday that liberal group Citizens for Tax Justice used data so flawed the report’s findings were “virtually meaningless.” Citizens for Tax Justice responded that the Tax Foundation didn’t take on the main thrust of the original report, “that the amount of profits that American corporations claim to have in these countries that are well-known tax havens is so impossibly high that no one can doubt tax avoidance is happening.”

It’s good to be the frontrunner in a House race – very good. The Washington Post found there are 405 House races where the frontrunner has a 90% chance of winning. If that sounds odd, given the discontent with Congress expressed in polls, consider this: In the 2002 and 2004 elections, House incumbents had a re-election rate of 99%.

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